Why Me?
by TheHomemadeDarkmark
Summary: Percy and Co. read PJO and HOO with the gods.
1. Chapter 1

Percy stumbled as he landed. "Woah," he said, grabbing his head. "What just happened?" He had been at camp, training. Preparing for war against Kronos. He and Beckendorf had just been discussing a plan to dispose of the Princess Andromeda.

Looking around, he immediately knew where he was. Olympus, and clearly he had appeared right in the middle of a meeting. The twelve Olympians were there, plus Hades. But that wasn't possible. Hades wasn't allowed on Olympus except during the Winter Solstice. Then he saw others also seeming to have just arrived.

"Annabeth!" he shouted, running over to her. She had stumbled upon arrival and fell to her knees. As he helped her to her feet, he asked, "What happened? Why are we-" He cut off. There was no way. He had seen Annabeth just a few minutes ago. How could she look so different?

Her curls were neatly trimmed, several inches shorter. She was taller, slightly tanner. And she was... _older._ He could see it in her face, the way she looked.

"Percy," she whispered, eyes wide. "How-?"

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING HERE?!" Zeus roared, cutting her off. He did not seem very happy at all.

"That is an excellent question," said another boy. Percy had no idea who he was. He had curly dark hair and Hispanic features. Percy took in all of the others. There was Thalia, Nico, Grover, Rachel, Tyson, his mother, and Paul. But there was also a few kids he didn't recognize. Along with the Hispanic kid, there was a blonde boy, a pretty girl with a feather in her hair, an Asian kid, and a girl a few years younger than the rest with dark hair and skin. There was also another girl, tall with dark hair. She wore a purple cape and kinda reminded him of Annabeth, just by her expression. She was staring at the blonde guy like he was from outer space. Much like how Annabeth was staring at him.

"Leo," the girl with the feather warned.

"Sorry, Piper," the Hispanic kid said with an over-dramatic sigh. Piper rolled her eyes.

"He's right, though," Thalia said, stepping forward. "Why are we here?"

A letter flashed in front of Percy's face, falling straight into his hand, which he reflexively stuck out to catch it. He opened it and read aloud, face paling.

_Gods, Goddesses, Demigods, Mortals, and Creatures,_

_We have decided that perhaps the future does not need to be set in stone. We will send you books, and each book will contain vital information if you wish to change the outcome of your future._

_Now, we have picked you all from different time periods, wherever we thought you would be most useful. The gods are from a few years before any of the demigods present were born. Mr. Jackson is from just before the final segment of the Titan War. The rest are all from the summer after, right before the demigods set out on a quest._

_None of the demigods, mortals, or creatures are to be harmed, or all of you will surely perish._

_Make your decisions wisely,_

_The Fates_

Silence rang around the room. Percy felt all eyes set on him, and it was making him feel uncomfortable. Especially those of his friends and parents, who were staring at him in the same way Annabeth was. Before things could get more awkward, another flash appeared, ten books appeared on the floor at Annabeth's feet. She knelt down, reading off the titles.

"_The Lightning Thief._" Percy groaned. Annabeth held back a smile.

"_The Sea of Monsters,_

_The Titan's Curse,_

_The Battle of the Labyrinth,_

_The Last Olympian,_

_The Lost Hero,_

_The Son of Neptune,_

_The Mark of Athena_." Annabeth nearly choked on that one.

_"The House of Hades,_

_The Blood of Olympus._" Her final words seemed to hang in the air.

"Well!" Leo said. "These sound like such happy books! Can't wait to start!"

"I think we should introduce ourselves first," Reyna said, scanning all but Hazel, Frank, Jason, Nico, and Percy with suspicion. Percy was surprised. Did she know him? Possibly, if she was from the future. At least that explained why some people looked older. "I am Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, daughter of Bellona."

"Why are their Romans here?" Posiden asked, eyes narrowed.

"Long story," Annabeth said. "I'm sure you'll hear it in the books. I am Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena."

"Percy Jackson," Percy piped up. "Son of Posiden." Hazel and Frank were slightly surprised, seeing Percy with all of his memories. Reyna wasn't, seeing as she had seen Percy before.

Zeus and Hades looked ready to blow up when Thalia hastily threw in, "Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus." Now Hades alone was fuming. It was not helped when Jason went directly after his sister.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter."

Leo gave everyone a crooked grin. "Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus."

Piper nodded respectfully, saying, "Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite."

Nico stepped forward. "Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades." Hazel's eyes widened. Hades? But wasn't he Roman, like her?

"H-Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto," she stammered, staring at her brother. He refused to meet her eyes.

"You see, Hades!" Zeus said. "You can't be angry!"

"Actually," Hazel said quietly, "Nico and I are both from the past, so father never broke the oath." Zeus was not happy about this.

"Frank Zhang," Frank said quickly. "Son of Mars."

"I am Tyson!" the cyclopes shouted, grinning. He didn't seem to fully understand the seriousness of everything.

"Grover Underwood," Grover said. "Satyr and Lord of the Wild." Percy raised his eyebrows. That was new.

Rachel smiled at the gods. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare, oracle." Percy's eyes were huge now. What had he missed?

His mother smiled slightly as well, not taking her eyes off of her son. "Sally Jackson, mortal."

Paul, who looked slightly freaked out, managed out a weak, "Paul Blofis, mortal."

Now that introductions were through, Zeus waved a hand, causing several couches and chairs to appear. "Shall we begin?" he said.


	2. The Lightning Thief: Chapter One

Percy decided to start.

**_Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood._**

**_ If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you._**

**_ Don't say I didn't warn you._**

"Wow," Thalia said. "I never knew you could be so serious, Percy." He stuck out his tongue at her.

_**My name is Percy Jackson.**_

"No, seriously?" Nico asked sarcastically. Percy just pouted. This would not be fun.

_**I'm twelve years old. Until afew months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private **_**_school for troubled kids in upstate New York._**

**_ Am I a troubled kid?_**

"Yes," several of the demigods who knew Percy said.

**_ Yeah. You could say that._**

**_ I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last_**

**_May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two_**

**_teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff._**

**_ I know—it sounds like torture._**

"Excuse me?" Zeus said, glaring. Percy just shrugged.

"I'm not one for learning."

**_Most Yancy field trips were._**

**_ But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes._**

__"Who?" asked Leo.

**_ Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee._**

"Sounds like Chiron," Piper said.

**_You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep._**

**_ I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble._**

"That's a lot to ask of yourself, Percy," Annabeth joked, though she was still freaked out that her boyfriend was here, before he was her boyfriend.

**_ Boy, was I wrong._**

**_ See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway._**

Sally sighed. "I told you not to touch anything."

**_And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim._**

"At least you didn't have anything to worry about there," Grover reasoned.

**_And the time before that... Well, you get the idea._**

**_ This trip, I was determined to be good._**

Annabeth, Grover, Thalia, Rachel, and even Percy laughed at this. Sally and Paul just sighed.

**_ All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich._**

"That's disgusting," Hazel said, wrinkling her nose. She felt bad for Percy. Even though she'd only known him a little while, he was like a brother to her.

**_ Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs._**

"Wow. I'm really flattered by your description, Perce," Grover said sarcastically.

"Sorry, G-Man," Percy apologized.

**_He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria._**

**_ Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip._**

**_ "I'm going to kill her," I mumbled._**

**_ Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."_**

"Although ketchup being mixed with it is just plain nasty," he reasoned.

**_ He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch._**

**_ "That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat._**

__"Aww!" Ares groaned. He had been hoping for a good fight.

_ "You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."_

**_ Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into._**

Poseidon looked worried. Everyone who didn't know the story was curious.

**_ Mr. Brunner led the museum tour._**

**_He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery._**

**_ It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years._**

"Oh, it's been much longer than that," Athena said.

**_ He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone col-umn with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of inter-esting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye._**

**_ Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown._**

"Lovely, a monster's there. And from the sound of it, a Fury," Poseidon groaned.

**_ From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month._**

_**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I **_**_didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."_**

Several people groaned. "Wait to keep up appearances!" Jason groaned.

**_ Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art._**

**_ Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"_**

**_ It came out louder than I meant it to._**

Annabeth couldn't help but smile.

**_ The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story._**

**_ "Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"_**

**_ My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."_**

**_ Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"_**

**_ I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"_**

**_ "Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And hedid this because ..."_**

**_ "Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"_**

"God?!" several of the gods said angrily. They did not want to be on level with Kronos.

_ "God?" Mr. Brunner asked._

**_ "Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But hiswife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"_**

"Did he have to put it like that!" Aphrodite complained.

**_ "—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."_**

**_ Some snickers from the group._**

**_ Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"_**

"If only she knew," Thalia muttered. Several other demigods nodded in solemn agreement. The gods couldn't help but look down guiltily.

**_ "And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"_**

**_ "Busted," Grover muttered._**

**_ "Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair._**

"Never thought that was possible until that moment, to be perfectly honest," Percy laughed.

**_ At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears._**

**_ I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."_**

**_ "I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"_**

"Happy note?" Piper asked, having made a face and clutched her stomach. Jason smiled at her and wrapped an arm over her shoulders.

**_ The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses._**

"What else could you expect from males?" Artemis said haughtily. Several of the guys in the room glared, but didn't argue.

**_ Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."_**

**_ I knew that was coming._**

**_ I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"_**

**_ Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything._**

"Maybe because they have?" Leo said sarcastically. Percy glared at him.

**_ "You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me._**

**_ "About the Titans?"_**

**_ "About real life. And how your studies apply to it."_**

**_ "Oh."_**

**_ "What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally impor-tant. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."_**

Percy sighed. "A lot to expect from a kid who couldn't even manage above a C." Annabeth smiled sympathetically.

**_ I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had everlived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life._**

"He was just looking out for you, Perce," Rachel said reasonably.

Percy nodded. "Well, I know that now."

**_No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly._**

**_ I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral._**

"Probably was," Nico said.

**_ He told me to go outside and eat my lunch._**

"Yeah, he's really gonna be able to eat after that," Frank muttered.

**_ The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue._**

**_ Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in._**

Everyone who didn't know what had happened glanced at Zeus and Poseidon.

**_ Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing._**

**_ Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere._**

"Did it work?" Hermes asked. Grover and Percy both shook their heads.

"Sadly, no," Grover sighed.

**_ "Detention?" Grover asked._**

**_ "Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."_**

Grover snorted. "Ain't that the truth." Percy glared at him as several of his friends laughed.

**_ Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"_**

Laughter rang through the room. "Seriously, Grover," Annabeth chuckled. Thalia just shook her head at their friend.

**_ I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it._**

**_ I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years_**

"Really?!" Leo asked, gazing open-mouthed at Percy. He thought he had it bad at school.

**_and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me._**

Sally smiled at her son. "I only want what's best for you."

He returned the smile. "I know."

**_ Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table._**

**_ I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap._**

Thalia growled. "I'm gonna kill her." Grover's other friends nodded while the satyr just blushed.

**_ "Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos._**

"Where in the world do you get metaphors like that?" Hazel asked, shaking her head at Percy.

**_ I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears._**

"Hint!" Leo shouted. Everyone stared at him, but he just shrugged, grinning.

**_ I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"_**

**_ Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us._**

**_ Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"_**

**_ "—the water—"_**

**_ "—like it grabbed her—"_**

"And how long did it take everyone to figure out who my parent was?" Percy asked, chuckling.

**_ I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again._**

_** As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the **_**_museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester._**

"Because you had," Nico reasoned.

"Well, duh, Captain Obvious!" Thalia said. Nico glared.

**_"Now, honey—"_**

**_ "I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."_**

Everyone in the room, excluding a few of the gods, groaned. Jason shook his head. "Man, even if your teacher _isn't _a psychopathic monster, you don't do that!" Percy just shrugged.

**_ That wasn't the right thing to say._**

"Obviously," Reyna muttered, which made several people jump. She had been rather quiet.

**_ "Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said._**

**_ "Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."_**

Annabeth smiled at her friend. "Aw, Grover, you're such a good friend."

Grover rolled his eyes, blushing again. "I was just doing my job, okay? Trying to keep him from getting killed."

Percy grinned. "Whatever you say."

**_ I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death._**

**_ She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled._**

**_ "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said._**

**_ "But—"_**

**_ "You—will—stay—here."_**

**_ Grover looked at me desperately._**

**_ "It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."_**

**_ "Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me."Now."_**

**_ I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there._**

**_She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on._**

**_ How'd she get there so fast?_**

**_ I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things._**

"Wrong," several people muttered.

**_ I wasn't so sure._**

**_ I went after Mrs. Dodds._**

**_ Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel._**

**_ I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall._**

**_ Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop._**

"Ha! If only," Percy laughed. Sally looked at him, worried.

**_ But apparently that wasn't the plan._**

**_ I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section._**

**_ Except for us, the gallery was empty._**

"Never a good sign," Apollo murmured.

**_ Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling._**

**_ Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it..._**

"I'm sure she does," Hades said.

**_ "You've been giving us problems, honey," she said._**

**_ I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."_**

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Now you try and do the safe thing." Percy just shrugged, grinning.

**_ She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"_**

**_ The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil._**

**_ She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me._**

**_ Thunder shook the building._**

**_ "We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."_**

**_ I didn't know what she was talking about._**

**_ All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay onTom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book._**

Athena looked offended. "Tom Sawyer is a brilliant novel written by an amazing-"

"Now is not the time, mother," Annabeth said. Athena just continued glaring at Percy.

**_ "Well?" she demanded._**

**_ "Ma'am, I don't..."_**

**_ "Your time is up," she hissed._**

**_ Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons._**

"Ugh. One of them," Posiedon whispered. He shuddered, thinking of his son being stuck in that position.

**_ Then things got even stranger._**

**_ Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand._**

**_ "What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air._**

**_ Mrs. Dodds lunged at me._**

**_ With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day._**

Percy pulled Riptide from his pocket, fiddling with the pen subconciously.

**_ Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes._**

**_ My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword._**

**_ She snarled, "Die, honey!"_**

**_ And she flew straight at me._**

**_ Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword._**

Ares nodded in approval. "Always a good thing to have come instinctively.

**_ The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!_**

**_ Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two._**

**_ I was alone._**

**_ There was a ballpoint pen in my hand._**

**_ Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me._**

**_ My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some-thing._**

**_ Had I imagined the whole thing?_**

**_ I went back outside._**

**_ It had started to rain._**

**_ Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."_**

"Who?" several people asked.

**_ I said, "Who?"_**

**_ "Our teacher. Duh!"_**

**_ I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about._**

**_ She just rolled her eyes and turned away._**

**_ I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was._**

**_ He said, "Who?"_**

**_ But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me._**

**_ "Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."_**

**_ Thunder boomed overhead._**

**_ I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, read-ing his book, as if he'd never moved._**

**_ I went over to him._**

**_ He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."_**

**_ I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it._**

**_ "Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"_**

**_ He stared at me blankly. "Who?"_**

**_ He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"_**

Percy looked up. "That's it. Who wants to go next?"

(Thoughts? Hope you all enjoyed!)


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